They didn’t look around; their singular thought was to disappear as far as possible. They encountered no one in the corridor. Solar assumed either everyone had been terrified by the sounds or they had received orders to ignore whatever they heard.
They were still in the prison corridor, and although they glanced into every cell, they were all empty. The energy barriers were turned off, alarms weren’t functioning, and Angron’s voice had fallen silent. There was complete silence all around them.
“What’s in your hand?” Daron asked when they had gone a sufficient distance and stopped to catch their breath.
The girl was still trembling as she raised her hands, revealing a small robot resting in her palm.
“This is Hira. My blaster. It took me a while to figure out what it could do. The person who gave it to me said it would get me out of any trouble, and he was right. I only realized it when I got caught on Darella once and they locked me up. I had no idea about any escape methods, and I was cursing why this gadget couldn’t help me right then. I stumbled upon the button that transforms it into a robot entirely by accident. It’s not good for much, but it can open almost any lock when I have no other options. The program that found me is also incorporated into it, and it was done by the person who gave it to me, using my blood sample. Hira could locate me on the other side of a planet, but it would take a long time.”
The boy tried to nod but ended up yelping and clutching his abdomen. The pain that struck him was excruciating. It felt as though someone had thrust their arm into his stomach. When the next moment he felt something similar happening in his back, he understood what happened. He experienced what Angron did with his other self.
Solar attempted to help him stand up, but Daron let out another yelp and collapsed onto the floor. The girl tried again to assist him, but he couldn’t rise; he just writhed in agony. Then, all at once, he couldn’t feel anything, only a dull emptiness. He was finally able to disconnect.
He was grateful for it.
“Are you feeling better?”
Solar’s voice was distant, as if she had heard it from the other side of the Galaxy.
“I think so…”
“All right. Calm down.”
She tried not to think about what Angron might have done to the other boy and what the scene in the cell might be like now.
Solar held Hira up to Daron’s wrist. The little robot quickly deactivated the restraints on both of them. She then grabbed the boy’s arm and hoisted it over her shoulder to offer some support.
Daron gazed at her with a dazed look. “Why… why are you helping me?”
“You’ll help me get the others out, or else I’ll kill you. I would leave alone if I could fly a ship, but I can’t… Hurry! We must find the admiral. It seems like no one cares about what happened to us. Aren’t there any cameras? They should have known by now that we escaped.”
“It was awful,” the boy mumbled, ignoring everything Solar had said. “I can’t even begin to tell you what really happened.”
“I dare not think about what Angron will do to us when he regains his senses and realizes that, against his every request, we allowed this to happen to someone. Whatever this is.”
Wherever Solar looked, she couldn’t see anything that posed a threat to them. There were no guards, and the alarms weren’t flashing. No one was down there. It was as if they weren’t even being watched.
She remembered that the two soldiers had said they weren’t put behind any significant defenses and that there was a good chance Angron would kill them, but were they really that confident in their actions? Solar found this very strange.
“I’m fine,” Daron said after a while and let go of the girl.
Although his legs were still trembling, he pushed Solar’s arm away when she reached out to him again.
“Seriously, everything is okay. It doesn’t hurt as much now. I can walk on my own.”
It bothered the girl a little that he didn’t even thank her for the help, but she understood that her attempts were in vain, so she started walking down the corridor again. However, she couldn’t stand the silence any longer and spoke up.
“Don’t you find this strange? There’s no one here. Not even prisoners.”
“Calm down. The prison level is massive. I think it’s about three stories high. It’s likely they brought us to the less populated area, where there aren’t many people. Maybe it’s because of your friend. The Captain probably knew what he was doing when he sent us here. He never makes mistakes.”
“No guards were watching us! Didn’t anyone notice that we escaped?!”
“Who cares? At least we’re out! The lift is right here.”
Indeed, she was right. They found the lift after about fifty steps and got in without hesitation.
Daron had no problem with all the unmarked buttons inside the lift because he had used them for a while. He pushed aside the dazed Solar and pressed a few buttons.
“The trick is not only to press the one that goes to the right floor but also to enter a code just before. Otherwise, the lift will trigger an alarm immediately.”
“They don’t change it?”
“They do.”
“So how do you know the code?”
“It was ridiculously easy to observe the last time when the Captain took me to see Quilen.”
“Listen…”
“What?”
“Are you trying to tell me that on this spaceship, where the Rebel Leader himself is present, his top confidant didn’t care to make sure you didn’t see the code? Didn’t he blindfold you or something?”
The boy thought about it. “Well… he didn’t care.”
“Do you think that’s not strange at all?”
“Maybe he just didn’t get enough sleep that day.”
“You just said that he never makes mistakes. You’re suggesting that he basically offered you to spy on the code. And besides, nobody watched us.”
The boy couldn’t say anything in response.
“He wouldn’t betray his lord, if that’s what you’re thinking. He’s too proud for that.”
At the same time, in another part of the spaceship, Quilen smiled upon hearing this, while he and the Captain watched the camera monitors.
“It could be better, but the girl is quite intelligent. I’m going now. You know what to do, right?”
The Captain nodded and continued to monitor the screens as Quilen left.
A few moments later, Solar and Daron stepped out of the elevator and hurried on their way. The boy knew that he didn’t have to tell the direction because when he tried to, the girl immediately interrupted, saying she knew where they came from.
Ironically, Solar felt somewhat relieved when she discovered that things were not as easy for them here. At the first corner, they nearly ran into a camera, but they jumped back in time. Actually, they had no particular problem with the cameras, thanks to Hira. If the little robot had not been with them, the situation would have been more complicated, but Solar believed she could manage it even without it. However, with Hira, whenever they encountered a camera, the girl issued the command, and Hira went into action, making the cameras capture the same image for a few moments, whatever happened. But since that wasn’t its main function, it was only capable of such actions for a very short time. Therefore, Daron and Solar had to hurry to get to the next safe place where they waited for the little robot to catch up with them.
So far, they managed to avoid the alarms. They noticed several of them, but they were mainly in the rooms, not the corridors.
Dealing with the soldiers proved to be much more challenging. There weren’t many of them, but the youngsters’ only weapon was Hira, which they only kept for dire circumstances. When they passed by one of the alarmed rooms, where weapons were stored, they briefly contemplated grabbing something, but they decided against it. The abandoned bodies would have caused more problems than benefits. They chose to try to evade the soldiers instead, which was far from simple. Despite the time pressure, they could only move stealthily, and they had to wait for each guard to turn away, which didn’t always happen quickly. Some soldiers were stationed beside doors and were quick to notice anything. With the first such encounter, they took their time figuring out how to handle it without alerting the guard or calling for reinforcements. Eventually, they stumbled upon a solution entirely by accident. Hira simply flew out of Solar’s hand and hovered in front of the guard’s nose. The guard looked puzzled, as if he weren’t sure whether the robot belonged to them. Daron quickly understood the situation and pulled Solar along to pass the short section in time. The girl suppressed her annoyance at losing Hira, but her anger quickly dissipated when they reached the next corner and the robot flew back to them, settling on Solar’s shoulder. Neither of them understood how such an idea had come into the robot’s mind, but they didn’t care. They heard the guard had finally grown suspicious because of Hira and started to head toward them, so they immediately moved on.
At one corner, Solar came to a halt and shot an angry look back when Daron accidentally bumped into her.
“What’s wrong?” the boy asked, but Solar placed her hand over his mouth. When Daron just nodded, Solar looked back out onto the corridor.
Quilen stood there, barely twenty meters from them. He had just closed a door behind him, from which a greenish light emanated. It seemed he hadn’t noticed them since he didn’t turn their way even for a moment; instead, he started walking down the corridor in the opposite direction.
Solar had been contemplating how easy it would be to aim her blaster at him right now and fire when a strange occurrence took place. The sword hanging at the leader’s side lit up with red light and began to shine vibrantly. Quilen froze, then a second later drew his sword, turned, and scanned the corridor with a red gaze.
Solar pulled her head back in fright and silently hoped that the Leader hadn’t noticed them. Daron stood beside her also in silence. He didn’t know what Solar had seen, but he understood that they were in danger.
For a few moments, as their hearts thumped in their throats, they fell into a deep silence. Then they heard the Leader moving, but not toward them. He headed in the opposite direction.
“What happened?” Daron asked.
Solar gestured for him to be silent and sneaked out cautiously, then stopped in front of the door.
“What are you doing?” Daron asked.
“I’m going in here,” replied the girl as she leaned toward the panel.
“Why?”
“I think I know what’s inside. It’s secured with a numeric code. How much do you want to bet I can open it in less than ten seconds? Without Hira, of course.”
“I’m not betting.”
“Then glory it is as the prize. Start counting.”
The girl’s paw moved quickly, and the door opened with a soft hiss.
“How did you do that?”
“Let’s just say it’s a trade secret.”
The boy was still looking for alarms, but despite his attempts to stop Solar, she rushed to the center of the small room. On a pedestal behind a white energy barrier, a greenish object lay. It looked like a colorful piece of metal or glass that had been broken off somewhere. This single source of light was enough to overpower the white glow of the barrier.
“What is that?” Daron asked.
“This is what I found on Darella. The admiral wanted to take this from me.”
“What makes it so valuable that it needs to be hidden behind such security?”
“Perhaps it’s made of some very valuable metal that can be sold at a high price… Wait a moment! I’m taking it with me.”
“Why?”
“Because it was taken from me, and now I’m taking it back.”
Solar held Hira up to the panel and waited for the small robot to take care of it. The energy barrier disappeared, and the boy was already reaching for the shard when Solar slapped his hand away.
“I’ll take it! It’s safer with me!”
With that, Solar hid the strange shard deep inside her clothes.
“What if it’s dangerous?”
“As long as I get money for it, I honestly don’t care.”
Afterward, they began to search around to see if they could find anything useful. The small room didn’t contain much, but they tried tapping on every wall in case they discovered any hidden panels, yet without any results. Finally, they returned to the pedestal in the center of the room. They found it odd that there were no cameras or alarms in this room either. Solar brought up the idea that maybe turning off the energy barrier would set off the alarm, but Hira managed to handle that as well. Either way, Quilen either trusted the numeric code or his energy barrier, or he skillfully concealed the cameras.
“Hira, can you find anything else here?” Solar asked, puzzled, prompting the small robot to make beeping noises.
Daron stared at it in surprise because it hadn’t made any sounds until now.
“She says she saved something when she was dealing with the energy barrier, but she doesn’t know what it is. Maybe we can check it on the ship later.”
“Great. Let’s just get out of here! We have no business being here!”
The boy saw that Solar had finally given in to his reasoning. They had spent too much time here already. They hurried away, and the girl closed the door behind them. Now they were running to find Serion and Sephra. However, they didn’t notice that someone was watching them from the other end of the corridor.
“They’ve been found,” Quilen whispered quietly into his wristband. “Fortunately, it seems both of them are fine. All right. I will ensure the hangar is clear.”
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